Tag Archives: relief

RACHEL M HOLLIS: Swim Lesson

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

He cries the whole way, wriggling against the straps of his car seat. I hold my breath. Steam rises as cold air hits warm water. Bare feet slap against wet concrete. He dips one tentative toe, then a whole foot. All the way under now, laughing and splashing. I exhale.

Rachel M. Hollis lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, child, and a deeply unmotivated dog. Her work appears or is forthcoming in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, Midway Journal, Lost Balloon, Gone Lawn, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere.

YASH SEYEDBAGHERI: Summer Serenade

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Bills and clients call from screeching screens. Phones clang. But instead, amid a canopy of stars, my older sister tells me to relax. To breathe, to inhale. She takes my hand. We waltz to Tchaikovsky, while summer psithurisms whisper and a full moon rises, casting the brightest beacons, shadows fleeing.

Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Mir-Yashar’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Ariel Chart, among others. He has been working on a short story collection centered around two siblings and their quest for the American Dream. Mir-Yashar lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.

ANGELINE SCHELLENBERG: To Keep Warm

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Parents pull children from rubble, hold them to their breasts, kiss dust from tear-stained cheeks. I push the beam off my own chest. I’m shivering. From the cold or from sobbing, I can’t tell. My father finds me. He leans down and lovingly wraps a signed cheque around my shoulders.

Angeline Schellenberg is the author of Tell Them It Was Mozart, Fields of Light and Stone, and the 2024 release, Mondegreen Riffs. Her 50-word story was selected for Best Microfiction 2024. She is a spiritual director and host of the Speaking Crow open mic in Winnipeg, Canada. angelineschellenberg.wordpress.com

ALISON BERNASCONI: Blue

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , , ,

My eyes still ache. My eyes are the ocean. Pale water swirls in my irises. It’s what I miss, what I crave.

Church at 7:00 AM. Sticky petticoats, stifling dresses, sickly sweet incense.

Home for toast and tea. Then all seven in the wagon. To merge with the silken sea.

Alison Bernasconi is a full-time educator, part-time swimmer, and occasional reader.

RUTH MANNINO: It’s a Habit

Adventure, Poetry, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

It’s a habit:
looking out my kitchen window.

Checking to see if my neighbor’s car is parked.
Relief when I see it,
Knowing he’s safe.

Irene never returned
from the trip to PA
for her chemo treatments.

Hit a tree.
Took days to discover.
Broke in to rescue her dog.

Ruth Mannino is testing her hand at writing poetry for April’s poetry month. She learned more about Irene after she died, than when she was living next door. Isaac, her dog, was adopted by a good man and his family.

CONNIE TAYLOR: Monday Morning Motivation

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

Monday motivational meeting. Eleven frowning people surround the board room table.

Door opens; eleven heads bow, eyes staring at the floor.

Heels click across the hardwood.

New voice. “I’m Nancy from Human Resources. There’s no meeting today. Sylvie is no longer with the company.”

Nancy leaves. Eleven smiling people follow.

Connie Taylor is an Operations Manger by day, a writer and reader by night. Her writing aspirations began in grade school with her heroine Pantoulia who leaped over football fields of fire. She’s contributed to the Journal of Integrated Studies and enjoys writing both fiction and non-fiction.

C JENISE WILLIAMSON: Inattention

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , , , ,

She placed the baby in the kitchen sink.

“Oh, the soap!” She walked quickly to the bathroom. “There it is,” she said, smelling the soap’s cool fragrance.

She heard the baby crying
and ran
so slowly it seemed.

The hot water was gushing cold: she’d forgotten the laundry was running.

C. Jenise Williamson is the founding coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at Bowie State University. She has published in Painted Bride Quarterly and other literary magazines as well as in the anthology Enhanced Gravity: Washington Area Women Writers. She lives in Greenbelt, Maryland.

DENNIS YADRYSHNIKOV: The Throne

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

The silence enveloped me, allowing me to relax deeply. My breathing slowed and my head cleared.

I contemplated my entire life, my goals, and even my possible future. I sat there for what felt like an entire millennium, in reality twenty-five minutes, and I smiled.

Then I flushed the toilet.

Dennis is a beautiful, inspirational, and sexy young man. He loves to write creative and humorous short stories.